Chapter 9

He strolled through the woods, trying to pick out a location for a new tree house. Not every tree, even in dense forest like this, was right for it. He needed a tree that was not only tall, with relatively few low limbs, but healthy enough to bear extra weight—and to outlive the humans who were about to become its new inhabitants.

He was almost out of sight of the girls’ tree house, entirely out of sight of the main house, when he found the tree he’d been looking for. A thick-trunked fir, reaching far up into the canopy, free of disease, with only a few low branches—sturdy, well separated from each other, and nearly perpendicular to the ground. As if it had been made to cradle a hideout.

He had a vision for what he wanted, but he didn’t know yet what it was. It would be round and cozy—a Hobbit hole up a tree—with a spiral stairway ascending. It would blend well with its surroundings and be rough-hewn, making use of raw logs or limbs with bark still intact in places, with a wraparound deck. There’d be a woodstove at the far corner of the deck, which he could use to heat water for an outdoor shower.

It would feel so good to build. His job had been about destruction for way too long.

And he’d teach Clara as he went, pass along what he knew to her. That was way better, for sure, than the knowledge he’d passed along in Afghanistan. How to be wary, how to be vigilant, how to tear down, how to capture and kill.

The girls had ridden their bikes to the ice-cream shop after lunch. Trina had asked them to check in when they arrived at the shop and when they left, and they’d been forbidden to deviate from their route. “I should have confirmed with you, first, Hunter,” she’d said—not looking at him.

“It’s fine,” he said. “You’ve kept them alive all year; I trust your judgment.”

I don’t, however, trust mine. What the fuck happened last night, Trina?

If it had been a dream, it had been realistic enough to leave him with physical evidence; he’d tossed his boxers into the laundry, unease weighing heavily. He’d showered, finding other signs, a sore spot on his thigh, a chafed area where he didn’t think his fist had done any recent work.

Her mouth slick under his, her body arching, her voice a choked cry.

He wrenched his attention back to the tree, his creation slowly revealing itself, his mind already leaping ahead to measurements, to the attachment bolts he’d sink, the brackets he’d need—a trip to the lumberyard in order soon.

“Hunter?”

She was tromping toward him through the woods, laughing.

“What are you doing? You look like—you know that scene in Winnie-the-Pooh where Piglet and Pooh are chasing their own footsteps around the tree?”

She wore a pair of leggings that cut off just below the knee and a long shirt that flared a little at the hips, emphasizing the gorgeous excess of her curves, and his hands were 100 percent positive they’d been all over that ass last night.

He imagined the conversation:

Um, I have a potentially awkward question for you.

Shoot.

Did we—last night—did we hump like teenagers in my bed?

Funny you should mention it, we did!

He let out a short laugh and she looked at him like he’d gone stark raving mad. Right. Right. He hadn’t actually answered her question.

“I’m thinking of building another tree house.”

“Another one? Lucky girls.”

“Not for the girls. At least—I don’t think it’s for the girls.”

“Then—?”

“I guess for me,” he said. “I need—a project.”

“Makes sense.”

“Did you— I’m sorry, I don’t remember, but—”

“You don’t have to apologize for stuff you don’t remember.”

She’d done something different with her hair today, and it fell in loose corkscrews against the cream of her neck. An image, like a snippet of video, flashed through his mind: brushing the tips of her hair against the sensitive skin of her throat.

Memory?

His heart was pounding.

She was staring at him now, questions in her eyes, and he said, quickly, “I don’t remember if I was around when you decorated the tree house—”

She shook her head. “I did it while you were gone. I hope it’s okay.”

“Are you kidding? It’s amazing. I love it. I can see how you’d be a great set designer. It’s like a movie set—for a happy childhood, maybe.”

She smiled. “That’s kind of what I was thinking when I did it. I hadn’t designed anything in so long. You don’t get many chances, living in apartments. I mean, obviously you can buy furniture and rugs, and that’s satisfying to a degree, but I haven’t been able to really choose paint colors, definitely not to do murals—”

“Did you do the painting?”

“The girls and I.”

“The tree?”

“I did the tree.”

“It’s beautiful.”

A blush had risen in her cheeks, and he suddenly wished he’d seen her last night, aside from the shadowy sense of her above him. Wished he’d seen her eyes, the color in her face and chest.

But it would be better, saner, far more sensible to wish it hadn’t happened. That it had been, in fact, only a dream.

“So, a tree house for you? What for?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think just for the pleasure of building it. I miss it. Making something with my hands.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I miss it, too. Having a picture in my head, making it real in the world.”

“Yes,” he said, with so much vehemence that they both laughed. And he felt a sudden surge of kinship with her. He’d never really found anyone else to talk to about that aspect of himself, partly because he’d spent most of his adult life around soldiers, but also partly because even in his home life, he’d been focused on survival—keeping his marriage together, making sure his daughter got what she needed when there wasn’t quite enough love to go around in their household.

“Did we talk about this? Before?”

“Before amnesia? B.A.?”

He laughed. “Yeah. B.A.”

“No. There was so much other stuff going on—we were focused on the girls, and on—”

The sudden pink in her cheeks made it clear what that pause stood in for.

“I knew you built tree houses, and I knew you loved finish carpentry. You said if you didn’t deploy again, that’s what you’d do, finish carpentry—”

“Yeah, Nate said that, too. That I was talking about getting out.”

Her face, her eyes, even the tiny movements of her lashes and mouth, got very still. She nodded.

“Did I say why?”

Her gaze slid away from his.

“Because of you?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think only because of me. But maybe—yeah, maybe somewhat. Whatever. Anyway, forget I brought it up, okay?”

She turned away, her shoulders hunched. Even though the posture was meant to be self-protective, it made her look terribly vulnerable, and he wanted to reach out and touch her. Just something simple and innocent. Reassurance. The comfort of a human hand.

But he didn’t.

“Hey,” she said, after a moment, turning back. She’d schooled her face in the meantime and the storm appeared to have blown through. “Why I came out here. I was just looking at plane tickets. It’s cheaper for us if we go Saturday.”

Saturday was the day after tomorrow.

He nodded, feeling that tightness in his chest again. Before his injury, he’d heard people talk about that physical sensation, but he’d never experienced it. Now, it was a frequent visitor.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay with that.”

So either last night hadn’t happened or it didn’t change anything. And he should be relieved about that. He was relieved about that.

She tilted her head to one side, and he thought she was trying hard to look like it didn’t matter what he said.

“I think it’ll be fine,” he said.

Over the last couple days, she’d gradually revealed everything she could think to tell him about Clara. Current favorite shampoo brand. The fact that she now liked to wear white camisoles under all her clothes. The school had told Trina to keep an eye on Clara’s vision—she might need glasses if things got any worse. Clara had developed a crush on a boy in her math class but seemed to be over it now.

“I forgot to say, about the lunch wraps, if you grill the chicken, she rejects it. And she won’t eat turkey breast. Which, I don’t know, is probably just as well, because I’m sure all that store-bought deli meat isn’t good for kids anyway.”

“It’ll be fine,” he repeated.

He did not feel fine, though. His head hurt. His thoughts were muddled. Words came slowly to him, as if he were trying to find them in a vast file cabinet, searching one folder at a time.

“I’ll make chili for dinner for tomorrow night. It’s Clara’s favorite. And we could, I don’t know, watch a movie they like or something.”

“Sure,” he said.

She turned and went back inside, and he watched the pretty swing of her hair and the sway of her ass. Made himself look away.

Saturday.

She wouldn’t get to see the tree house go up, or not much of it anyway, since he hadn’t touched the tip of a pencil to paper yet.

That tight feeling in his chest?

Regret, he thought.

And what a funny thing to regret. He had no sense of loss about those weeks she was mourning, but he couldn’t quite catch his breath over the fact that she wouldn’t be here to stamp her vision on the inside of his tree house.

The human mind was a marvel, he thought—what it chose to let go of and what it chose to hold onto.